The Hunneneiche

Two sources disagree about this oak's age by nearly three centuries, and neither has given way. The Naturpark Hassberge, which lists it for visitors, says about 500 years. The dendrologist Rainer Lippert, who documents Bavaria's monumental oaks one specimen at a time, works from a recorded planting around 1700 give or take a hundred years, which puts the tree somewhere between 220 and 420. Both figures are published. Nobody has cored the trunk to close the gap. What has been measured is less arguable. The trunk was 6.61 metres round in 2014 and climbs about ten metres as a near cylinder before it releases into limbs, which is why the oak reads as a column from the road. It stands 21 metres tall and is hollow inside, betrayed only by a few small openings. It grows alone on a meadow at the western edge of Untermerzbach, on open ground off the Schlossweg, and has been a legally protected natural monument since 31 July 1963. The inn beside it took the tree's name rather than the other way round: the Gasthaus Hunneneiche is what most drivers coming off the B4 notice first, and this oak is the reason it is called that. There is no gate, no ticket and no opening hour. The meadow is simply there, at any time of day or year.